


Nightterrors

by bioticgoddess



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:55:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticgoddess/pseuds/bioticgoddess
Summary: What happens when Bucky has a nightmare (set before Civil War)





	Nightterrors

Bucky sat beside Taryn on the sofa in the Bucharest apartment, they were practically replaying the scene from her McLean Apartment. Each of them had a mug of tea and their backs were to the arm rests so they faced one another. He sighed heavily, watching the giant purple bruise spread across her shoulder and upper chest. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, eyes downcast into the tea. 

“It’s not your fault,” she said, halfway shrugging, and nudging his shin with her foot. “You have nothing to apologize for,” she added, eyes fixed on him. It had been a year since they started on the run. This hadn’t been the first time he’d had a nightmare - relived some of what HYDRA used him for. Nor had it been the first time he’d struck Taryn - still believing he was in some fight or otherwise trying to lash out at the HYDRA agents who’d made his life miserable for years. It had been, however, only the second or third time that she’d forgotten to charge her bioelectric field or create a barrier.

He sighed and shook his head. “Why do you always absolve me of any responsibility,” it was a question but came out as a critique. He flushed and stammered, “I’m sorry, I didn’t - shit - wait, you’re amused by this.” He could see the tired smile that the enhanced - no, Inhuman - flashed him from behind her mug.

“When you get flustered like this, it is kind of adorkable,” she said, a half chirp. “Besides, at least it wasn’t like when you threw the table across the room.” She nodded at the cracked spot on the plaster and concrete wall. It looked like a chunk had just fallen off. What Taryn made light of, hoping to bring him back from that dark place his nightmares and their aftermath sent him too, always hung with him. After a moment, Bucky narrowed those storm filled blue eyes at her, the brunette sighed. Her tone went from being light to solemn, “Because there is a difference between you and you when your nightmares have you believing you’re still the Winter Soldier. Because you  **do** take ownership of your actions and because you want to get to a point where being woken up from a nightmare doesn’t run the risk of an assault. Don’t forget, I’ve see you - twice now- fully under the control HYDRA. I’d really like not to overload either of our bio-electric fields again.”

He stopped, letting whatever sentence had been on his lips die. Bucky remembered that day. They hadn’t yet managed to get out of the States by then, maybe a month or so after the fall of SHIELD/HYDRA,  and were close to the Canadian border. A small HYDRA cell that had been relatively unaffected by the destruction in Washington tracked him across western New York. Squeezing his eyes closed, he could see the room they’d been locked in - the vault with one of the cache’s he meant to raid. Weapons, cash, passports waiting for photos, all lined the walls.

“Bucky,” she called out, rousing him from the memory. “Hey,  _that_ wasn’t your fault  _either_.” 

His mind wandered back to the vault and he nodded. “Not sure I can forgive myself though,” he muttered, lost in the memory again.

_—–_

Bucky whirled around when he heard the barred door of HYDRA’s safehouse vault slam shut. Taryn stopped in her tracks as well, he heard her footfalls freeze. “Ah, Soldier, how wonderful to see you are still functional,” a man chuckled, obscured in the shadows for the rest of the house’s basement area.

“Who the fuck are you,” Bucky growled, searching the room as best he could from the smaller vault. The man laughed again, “It’s not surprising you don’t remember me. After all, your handlers changed so regularly over the years.” The smile on his voice made both Bucky’s and Taryn’s skin crawl. They were trapped in that room as the man fumbled with a piece of paper. “I had to write them down once,” he snickered, “Only the Major, your primary handler, refused to let that book out of his sight,” he sneered, staying out of the light cast by the vault.  It made Bucky’s stomach drop, even as his young friend put her hand on his right bicep - his muscles twitching.

Bucky whispered, suddenly realizing what the man had on that rumpled piece of paper, “No! Don’t do this!” There was a pleading edge to his voice, despite the stoic face and tone he took.

“We’ll rebuild HYDRA Soldier,” he paused, looking at Taryn as if finally registering the Inhuman was present. “After, you take care of her.” He cleared his throat as Bucky threw himself against the bars of the vault door. In Russian, the man began, “ желание. ржaвый.  Семнадцать.”  _Longing. Rusted. Seventeen._  The man had to study the page for a moment after that third word, he snorted and Bucky pleaded with him to stop.

Taryn caught his right hand - the flesh hand - “Bucky. Bucky! Focus on me!” He was muttering No over and over as the man finally continued.

“ Рассвет.  Печь,”  _Daybreak. Furnace.;_ he snapped, pronunciation painfully perfect. Bucky pulled his hand from his friend’s and pushed her back as best he could without turning to face her. He howled dropped to his knees, clamping his palms over his ears and temples. It did no good when the one handler continued, “ Девять. Добросердечный. возвращение на родину. Один,”  _Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One._  Bucky’s whole body tensed up, and he went silent. Taryn’s blood ran cold. She’d heard horror stories from Bucky about this over the last few months.

With a grin on his face, the man said the one word Taryn actually knew, “ грузовой вагон,”  _Freightcar_.  

Everything about her friend changed. He squared his shoulders, stood up like a cobra uncoiling and preparing to attack. The man asked, “Soldatz?”

Bucky’s voice was gravely and menacing, “ ГОТОВЫЙ ПОДЧИНЯТЬСЯ.”  _Ready to comply_.

“Ah excellent,” the man was suddenly gleeful, he even clapped his hands. “Kill the girl and meet us in the city. We have some, other, things to arrange for our resurrection.” Both men turned on their  heels, the new handler chirped as he flew up the stairs, “Proceed.” Clearly he had no stomach for the violence that was likely to ensue. 

“Well shit,” the Inhuman muttered, shifting as far away from the corner as she could. This day was turning into a nightmare. Keeping out of his grasp was going to be the the key of any plan or hope to bring him out of the Winter Soldier state. Taryn had been  anything but a fighter - at least not int he same sense that Bucky was. Her movements, even the handful of things he’d taught her over the last few weeks, were somwehere south of graceful. The few hits she was able to get in, blocking and redirecting a swing of his were sufficient. But they both knew she couldn’t keep up. Not for long at any rate.

Trapped in his mind, Bucky could hear Taryn calling out to him, trying to get him to stop or pause - something. After several minutes, however, he managed to corner Taryn. She’d run out of wall space - trying to  avoid his onslaught and finally ended up right in a corner. On her left, she had an empty wall. To the right - a number of small lockers. Without thinking she charged her bio electric field as Bucky swung. The hit slammed her back against the wall. “Stop! Bucky it’s me,” she whimpered. “C’mon, I know you’re in there,” she gasped, shifting slightly to the right when he swung again. His fist crashing into the wall beside her head.

Another breath and his left hand had encircled her neck. Taryn gasped as he squeezed- she could feel the pressure in her neck and the increasing difficulty to breath. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked and let loose a shear of bio electric energy that sent him flying across the room. She gasped, sucking in a deep breath of air and trying to summon the energy needed to charge her bioelectric field again. 

“Taryn,” Bucky called out, voice wobbly. “You okay?”

She coughed, “I’ll be fine.”

“What…” he groaned, everything hurt. “Was that?”  When he choked her, he’d felt a tingle of energy crawl up his left arm - that part was normal. What had happened next not only knocked him on his ass but managed to zap him back to himself. Literally. He felt like his whole body had been put in an electrical circuit - right until he slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the room. This hurt more than when she’d hit him with a barrier the day they - formally - met.

—–

“Earth to Bucky,” she called, practically kicking the soldier. “Yohoo, hello! Hi,” she chirped when he finally blinked and registered her attempting to get his attention. 

He sighed, “Sorry.”

“Rabbit hole,” she asked, his blue eyes searching her face.

After a moment of silence he nodded. That happened, more than he liked to admit, but Bucky would catch a shadow of memory from things from before that day in DC and chase it. The more memories he managed to get back, the less it happened. That didn’t mean that his trips down the rabbit hole ever got easier. Least of all when he hurt someone else. 


End file.
